Re: Chrétien de Troyes

["Tim Wallace-Murphy" <tim@templartim.freeserve.co.uk>]

Dear Friends,

    Like most children I was exposed to so-called 'Holy Grail' stories as a
child, blissfully unaware that they were the sanitised versions by Mallory
based on heavily expurgated 'Vulgate' versions put out by Holy Mother the
Church from which all trace of 'heretical' thought had been carefully
removed.

    I did not become aware of the originals until the 1980s when I was
working with Trevor Ravenscroft - who, incidentally, wrote the best
commentary on the encoded guide to Initiation within Von Eschenbach's work
in 'The Cup of Destiny' which has recently been reprinted by Samual Weiser
Inc. in the States.

Chretien de Troyes not only wrote 'Le Conte de Graal', but is also credited
with penning 'Lancelot' or 'The Knight in the Cart'. He deicated threee of
his works to the wife of his patron, Marie, Countess of Champagne.Her
husband's father,  Hugh of
Champagne was the liege lord of both Hugh de Payens and Andre de
Montbard,co-founders of the Knights Templar, and was also related to Bernard
de Fontain, later known as Bernard of Clairvaux whose uncle was Andre
deMontbard. Hugh of Champagen was also related by marriage to the St Clairs
of Normandy and, through them, to the St Clairs of Roslin.

After the death of Henry of Champagne, Chretien sought a new patron -
Philipe D'Alsace, Count of Flanders. Philipe not only sprang from the same
family as Godfroi de Boullion but also was the son of a cousin of Payen de
Montdidier another co-founder of the Templars. It was to Philipe that
Chretien eventually dedicated his unfinished work 'Le Conte de Graal'.

Speaking of the entire Graal corpus, the Grail scholarMalcolm Godwin said:

    "And at its core, there exists a secret which has sustained the mystical
appeal of the Grail for the last nine hundred years, while other myths and
legends have slipped away into oblivion and been forgotton."

    The group of families we call 'Rex Deus' which included the Houses of
Champagne, Flanders and the St Clairs of Normandy were the guardians of that
secret.

Best wishes

Tim


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